By SARA HEBEL --

When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California signed a state budget this week that includes spending increases for higher education in 2005-6, he also used his line-item veto power to strike $3.8-million from the plan that lawmakers had set aside for labor-research programs at the University of California.

The funds that the governor cut had been allocated for the university's Labor and Employment Research Fund, which supports studies by faculty members and graduate students across the 10-campus system, and for education and research on labor conducted by industrial-relations institutes located at the Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses.

In a message accompanying his veto of the labor-research funds on Monday, Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, said that "these reductions are needed to help bring ongoing expenditures in line with existing resources."

The governor did not voice any philosophical objections to the research programs, but he has consistently singled them out for cuts. He had proposed eliminating funds for the University of California's labor research last year as well, but the final state budget continued to finance the studies.

Some business-oriented and conservative interest groups in California have criticized the labor research conducted at the university's industrial-relations institutes. The groups oppose using state dollars to support programs that have, among other things, been aimed at helping to improve the capacity and operations of labor unions.

"I don't think there is any state program more deserving of the governor's blue pencil than this one," said Matt Tennis, legislative director at the Associated Builders and Contractors of California. He argued that the research programs at the industrial-relations institutes had been used to promote a "pro-labor" political agenda that he said was inapprioriate for a public university to try to advance.

Leaders of California labor unions have defended the labor-research programs as being important for helping to improve California's understanding of issues affecting workers. The American Association of University Professors also opposed efforts to eliminate funds for the labor studies, arguing that singling out specific research topics for cuts violated the academic freedom of scholars and undermined the university's autonomy. Universities often conduct research that helps improve businesses, and having institutions support studies that help labor unions is no different, supporters of the programs argued.

Democratic lawmakers backed the labor studies as well, saying that they believe that the programs provide important, high-quality research for the state. State Sen. Jack Scott, a Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said that he wanted the state to help finance research on a wide range of topics and that he viewed the work being done by the labor-research programs as "quite valid."

"To single this one area out and delete funding for this appeared to be partisan," Mr. Scott said of the governor's veto. "I regretted to see that he took that out."

For their part, University of California officials said that they had done their best to work constructively on the issue with members of both political parties and with others who have voiced interest in labor-research programs. "We will continue working to see if there is some way of funding a program in this area in a manner that addresses the concerns and interests of all involved," Brad Hayward, a university spokesman, wrote in an e-mail message.

The governor's veto of the research programs was accompanied by mostly good news for higher education in the overall $117.3-billion state budget for 2005-6. The plan provided spending increases for all three public-college systems. The University of California will get $2.8-billion, a 5-percent increase. For California State University, the budget included $2.6-billion, a 5.4-percent increase. And California's community colleges were allocated $5.5-billion, a 9.7-percent increase.

"We are grateful to both the governor and the Legislature for adopting a budget that halts the cuts of the last few years and invests in higher education's contributions to California," Robert C. Dynes, president of the University of California, said in prepared remarks about the overall budget.